CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 177 km round trip from Rosbach vor der Höhe - roughly 3 h 35 in the saddle. The stops in between: Watchtower WP 3/42*, Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci, Fortlet of Pfarrhofen and back through Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci.
Kaiser Wilhelm II took a personal interest in the Roman frontier, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, he ordered the complete reconstruction of the Saalburg, a Roman fort on the crest of the Taunus near Bad Homburg. The result, with its walls, gates and buildings rebuilt on the original foundations, is the most complete reconstruction of a Roman fort in Germany and houses a museum of Roman life on the frontier. A few kilometres north-east, near Rosbach vor der Höhe, the ruins of the Kapersburg fort lie in the forest, and the watchtowers numbered WP 4/1 to 4/19a, on the section of the Limes running from the Taunus ridge toward the Wetterau, are part of the UNESCO listing of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 3/42*.
Glashütten takes its name from the glass huts that worked in these forests in the Middle Ages, when the endless beech and oak of the high Taunus supplied fuel for the furnaces and potash for the glass. Today it is a quiet village spread over a saddle below the Großer Feldberg, at around 880 metres the highest summit in the Taunus, and the Roman frontier passes right by it. Watchtower 3/42 stood on this stretch of the Limes, where the bank and ditch run through the forest along the ridge; near the Feldberg summit, the remains of a small Roman fort, the Feldbergkastell, show where a garrison guarded a pass through the mountains.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 3/42* comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci.
The Taunus is the green upland that keeps Frankfurt's weekend riders sane, and running right across it is the line of the Roman frontier. The stretch of watchtowers numbered 3/1 to 3/14 lies near Taunusstein, north of Wiesbaden, where the Upper Germanic Limes crossed the ridge, and it includes the remains of forts and their civilian settlements. One of the best known nearby is the fort of Zugmantel, near the hamlet of Orlen, where the outline of the fort, the palisade line and reconstructed watchtowers give a real sense of the frontier. The whole line is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 60 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci. Next is Fortlet of Pfarrhofen.
In the second century, the Roman frontier in Germany ran across the hills of the Taunus north of the Rhine as a line of wooden palisades, ditches, earth banks, watchtowers and forts, stretching over five hundred kilometres from the Rhine to the Danube. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, as it is called, is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, listed by UNESCO in 2005, and the fortlet of Pfarrhofen, near Holzhausen an der Haide in the western Taunus, is one of the many small installations along its course. A fortlet was a small fort with a garrison of a few dozen men, guarding a road crossing or a section of the frontier between larger forts.
Read the complete Fortlet of Pfarrhofen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet of Pfarrhofen, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci sits at 103 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 3/42*.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 3/42* write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 3/42* comes up about 150 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort closes the day.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort → Watchtower WP 3/42* is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/42* → Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci → Fortlet of Pfarrhofen is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortlet of Pfarrhofen → back through Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 3/1 to 3/14 including the ci → back through Watchtower WP 3/42* is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 3/42* → Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.